Noreen Keating, 72, was CEO and president of Lighthouse of Oakland County for many years. Motivating others, she said, lets them 'do the most incredible things.' / Jarrad Henderson/Detroit Free Press

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

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Noreen Keating, who created the first soup kitchen in Pontiac and the first transitional housing in Oakland County, has spent more than three decades raising millions of dollars for causes and bettering the lives of those in need.

But the retired CEO and president of Lighthouse of Oakland County attributes her success to others — volunteers like those who turned an abandoned Pontiac building into transitional housing and those who’ve reached into their pockets to donate.

“That whole thing of people coming together, if you give them a job to do and they can get it done, it just motivates people, and they do the most incredible things,” said Keating of Auburn Hills.

Keating, 72, is a recipient of this year’s Eleanor Josaitis Unsung Hero Award, sponsored by the Free Press and the Metropolitan Affairs Coalition.

Those who know her say Keating’s talents allow nonprofits to expand services, reach out to more beneficiaries and establish cooperative programming between agencies.

“She has a legacy of being able to cross the missions of multiple agencies and government agencies to get out of their comfort zones to collaborate their sum parts,” said Daniel Stencil, executive officer of the Oakland County Parks and Recreation Commission, who has known Keating for years.

Stencil recalled a comment made by one of his staff members about Keating: “She’s one of those people, if she hooks her wagon to something, everybody wants to hook their wagon to hers.”

Leading Lighthouse

Keating spent 20 years leading and growing Lighthouse, which provides services to low-income families in Oakland County. Lighthouse offers emergency services with food and housing; utility and medical assistance; transitional housing for women and their children, including a Montessori preschool; counseling and work-force development, and rehabilitation and building of homes.

Keating left in 2005 and formed a consulting service to help nonprofit agencies and for-profit companies.

She works with or serves on more than a dozen boards and committees, including Rainbow Connection and CARE House of Oakland County. The University of Detroit Mercy alumna also volunteers as executive director of the Oakland Parks Foundation, a reinvigorated group to raise money for needs such as historic preservation and horticulture, garden and greenhouse education for Oakland County Parks and Recreation.

Diane Bert, who has known Keating for about two decades as a volunteer for Lighthouse, nominated Keating for the award. She said the transitional housing project exemplifies Keating’s work.

Lighthouse PATH provides transitional housing for women and their children, helping them move from dependency to self-sufficiency.

“I think she’s really a visionary. She sees a problem, dreams about solutions and brings together the resources to make it happen,” Bert said.

Grateful for help

Keating also values diversity and providing equal opportunities to people from different cultural and social backgrounds.

Keating said she came from a poor family. Her grandparents were Irish immigrants and faced discrimination. Her family eventually came to Detroit through Canada and prospered through hard work, she said.

Keating — a wife, mother and grandmother — said she always remembered the prejudice and discrimination.

And she said her success in helping those in need comes through a simple gesture: thanking people for their donation or volunteered time.

“I have this saying, ‘I always dance with who brought me to the prom,’ ” she said. “The saying is you need to be faithful to people who helped you. I need to be faithful to the city and the region who did all that for my family. It’s payback.”